What the Apple Foretold
by Shimegami-chan
Summary: One-shot. The Snow Maiden's request to an unlikely hero.


What the Apple Foretold

_by Shimegami-chan_

* * *

"I have to do it. This world deserves better."

Tom had only shaken his head. "But will it really work?"

"The Apple has foreseen that it will work." Buzz Buzz's expression had been too small to Tom to be readable, so Tom had to depend on the conviction so evident in his voice.

They must have looked odd to an outsider, a middle-aged bespectacled man, mustached and balding, deeply involved in conversation with an insect almost too small to detect. The town was so quiet and dark these days, though, that no one was around to see. It was a result of a phenomenon Tom did not fully understand; a meddling in the ten-years-distant past that had not yet been cemented. It caused a ripple in the present-day, where reality seemed to sense that the mission they were discussing would succeed, yet the results of the enemy's efforts could nevertheless be felt. Buzz had landed lightly on the table and adjusted his wings. "I believe in what the Apple foretold. If we can stop Geigue's intervention in the past, the present will change into a world safe for everyone to live in again."

"But…isn't it too late for us?" Tom had wondered despondently. "Will it really change? Will we remember things as they are, or will we never have lived as we have until now? What will happen to our world if you succeed?"

"That I do not know." Buzz Buzz's voice was grave. "I only know that should I _not_ succeed, the world will hardly be worth living in at all."

That exchange had been more than one week before. In that time, Buzz Buzz had not returned, nor had Tom heard any word whatsoever, until he recieved a summons from the Snow Maiden.

Tom gulped. Aside from his friendship with Buzz Buzz, he had no knowledge of the magical properties of the world. Intelligent animals like Buzz Buzz, or psykers like the Maiden, these things he had always known existed, but he had rarely crossed their paths. For a man like Tom, who had never left his hometown, even the journey to Snowman was a new experience.

When he was led into the chapel, which was much tinier than he expected given its reputation as the home as the most psychically powerful woman in this world, he was left alone in front of the alter, with no sign of Maiden or attendants. Perhaps, he thought, she was waiting for him somewhere invisible.

"You requested my presence, Your Holiness?" He wasn't really sure how to address her. Tom's voice shook with nerves, anticipating the appearance of the Snow Maiden. He had never before imagined that he would catch a glimpse of her in person.

And then she appeared from a door to the side, her diminuitive form clothed in white robes. Her face was mostly hidden by her hood. In her hands was clasped a small round object that glowed faintly. "You are Tom?"

"Y-yes, Your Holiness."

The Snow Maiden smiled easily and held up a hand, palm out. "No need for such formality."

"Yes….miss." Tom swallowed thickly. Somehow the Maiden did not look as imposing as he had expected. Perhaps the rumours he had heard about her immense power were exaggerations.

"I called you here for a reason," the Maiden stated simply, her expression betraying absolutely no hint of what this might mean. "The Apple of Enlightenment has spoken for you."

"The…the Apple?" The Apple of Enlightenment was the source of the prophecies that Buzz Buzz had so firmly believed in. Tom realized suddenly that the object in the Maiden's hand must surely be the Apple itself. "But why me?"

"Why the Apple prophecizes what it does, this I do not know," she replied softly, looking down at it. "I suspect it has something to do with belief. You knew Buzz Buzz, did you not?"

"I did. He is a friend. Is he not yet back from…?"

At this, the Maiden looked grave. "The situation has changed."

"What do you mean?"

"The Apple has begun to foretell a different prophecy from the one that Giegue and Buzz Buzz originally heard. If Buzz Buzz spoke to you about his task…well, whether or not you understand what the implications of this are, the Chosen Four have already heard Buzz Buzz's words in the past and begun to move against Giegue. But…it seems that although his mission was a success, he was defeated. He cannot return to this time."

Tom stepped back in shock. "You don't mean…?"

"I am afraid so." The Maiden's face betrayed only a hint of sadness, her lips a tight, serious line. "But you must realize, when he accepted the task, that he knew he might not be able to return…to have carried out the mission successfully, as he has done, surely would make him feel at peace."

Tom's chest felt heavy. He had warned Buzz Buzz about how dangerous going alone would be, and now his friend would not be coming home. Tom could not find it in his heart to accept so easily that this was what Buzz would have wanted.

"And now the Apple has requested you. To go there, as Buzz Buzz did, and finish what he started."

"I don't understand," Tom said weakly. "I have no power. I'm just a regular human."

The Maiden came closer until she was standing at the bottom of the stairs, directly in front of Tom. She was much shorter than him. She could not have been half his age, he realized; her face still rounded with youth. When she noticed how intently he studied her features, she smiled slightly and drew back the fabric covering her head. Her straight blonde hair pooled in the back of the hood, a few shorter sections naturally framing her face. "I was once a regular human, too."

"You…were?"

"I was." She turned slightly to focus her gaze on the simple decor above the altar. "I dreamed of fantastic things happening, but never imagined that I would become a part of them. I had always lived simply here with my parents, just a normal girl."

"But you became the Snow Maiden."

"An exaggerated title," she said with another gentle smile. "But if it helps one so young as me to be taken seriously, I accept that. Tom, though I would fight Giegue myself if I could, that task has been taken from my hands. The Apple foresaw it."

"Didn't you say that what the Apple predicted could change?"

"The Apple shows the most likely future," the Maiden said softly. "The moment I learned Giegue had been concentrating forces in Eagleland, my friends and I came together to prevent it. But…the Apple's prophecy changed."

Tom's mouth went dry. "What did it say?"

"The Apple showed me that Giegue – no, Giygas, he's called now – would defeat us. Even when we decided to attack from the past, it was too late. Giegue's power to detect PSI enables him to know as much as we do. No matter what plan we decided on, the prophecy continued to insist that we would die and Giygas would succeed."

Tom wasn't sure what to say. The Maiden, with all her psychic power, would die fighting Giegue, but he, Tom, could somehow help? Succeed where Buzz Buzz had failed? What could that mean?

The Maiden seemed to know what Tom was thinking, and he pulled away nervously, but he realized that she was reading the fear written all over his face. "I don't want you to take on Giegue. I wouldn't ask that."

"Then what…?"

"I want to entrust you with the Apple of Enlightenment. Without psychic power, you cannot hear its voice, but it will show its prophecies if you wish it." With this, she stepped forward and held the object out to him. The Apple was easily the size of both her hands, but it fit easily into Tom's palm when he extended his arm to accept it. Though the Maiden's hands were cool, the mystical object seemed to glow with a faint heat, and tingled where it contacted his skin. Within it, he could see roiling clouds and fog, sparkling under the thick crystal.

The Maiden put her hands under his and looked up at Tom. There was a note of urgency in her voice. "Will you accept this?"

Tom, heart pounding, held the Apple up and peered into its depths. The clouds reacted to his focused gaze and parted, sparking with tiny bolts of lightning. When the fog had lifted, he saw…himself. He looked the same as he always had, though his clothes had become threadbare and his face haggard. He was inside a small room, the walls unadorned, empty save for a display sign and a curious box made from scraps of wood. The top of the box – more like a stall, he thought, like the type you would see at the fairs in the town of Easter – had "HINT$?" scrawled across it in block letters.

As Tom watched the miniature effigy of himself in the crystal apple, the door to the little room opened and someone entered, looking around nervously. It was a boy, wearing a striped shirt and a red baseball cap, with a knapsack strapped to his back. As the real Tom watched, the tiny Tom exchanged words with the boy, and the boy handed him coins. Then the boy left, an obvious sense of purpose in his step.

When the door closed, the tiny Tom stood and laid the coins aside, then he withdrew something from beneath the stall and studied it intendly. Despite its size, Tom recognized it immediately as the same Apple of Enlightenment he was currently holding. The miniature Tom watched the scene in the Apple, then looked at the door again for a long moment. Finally he upturned his gaze until he seemed to be looking right at the real Tom.

The older man adjusted his glasses to look closer, but the scene in the Apple had begun to cloud over again, and soon the miniature of himself and his Hint Booth had disappeared. When he lifted his head to speak to the Maiden again, she was looking at him, her expression filled with unconcealed hope. "You can help him. That boy and his friends will be the ones to defeat Giegue. I…." She hesitated for a moment, and the Apple flashed momentarily, drawing Tom's gaze to it again. There was another boy in the Apple, similar in appearance but with a cocky smile, and by his side a silver-haired child with huge spectacles and a small girl clad in pink, her straight blonde hair and vivid blue eyes already familiar to Tom. Before he could question it further, though, the scene vanished.

"They can't do it without help," The Maiden continued, composing herself. Her voice was not as firm as it had been before. "Someone must bring the Apple to the past. Tom…will you accept this task? Not just for Buzz Buzz's or my sake. For the sake of that boy and his entire world."

"I accept."

She smiled with great relief, and Tom could not help but notice that she – the famed Snow Maiden, the most powerful psychic in the land – seemed to have tears in her eyes.

* * *

_-end-_


End file.
